


Sooner or later, delicate death

by thusitakemyleave (mythicalkiss)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy's gone, Angst, Blood, Booker is back, Depressing, Gen, Grief, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Quynh is good, Set sometime in the far future, description of corpse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythicalkiss/pseuds/thusitakemyleave
Summary: How do you love someone for over a thousand years and lose them in an instant?
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 140





	Sooner or later, delicate death

**Author's Note:**

> This is a not-for-profit fanwork. All characters are the property of their respective copyright holders.

It’s been twelve hours. Nicky’s been dead for twelve hours. It was a single shot straight to the heart. He died almost instantly, his eyes seeking out Joe’s briefly before closing forever. There are no limbs to regrow, no extensive damage for his body to piece back together. He should have healed and awakened immediately.

They brought his body back to their nearest safe house and laid Nicky on one of the beds. Joe hasn’t left his side, not to eat or drink, wash or rest. His eyes move back and forth between the wound on Nicky’s chest and his face. Every now and then he whispers soft words.

Nile, Booker, and Quynh watch him uneasily. They’ve each had their turn to weep, each pleaded with Joe to let him go.

Nicky’s body is stiff and cold, his pallor appears slightly green and grey. The smell will come soon, bringing it with the flies and the bloat. They have to remove the body before that happens.

“Joe,” Booker says quietly. He crouches beside the bed and tries to get Joe to meet his eyes.

“He’s gone. I’m so sorry, but he’s gone. You can see,” he gestures at the body. “We have to bury him now.”

There’s a long beat of silence, so long Booker isn’t sure he was heard. Then:

“If you put him in the ground, you put me in with him.”

“Be reasonable, Joe, we’re not burying you with a rotting corpse for all eternity. Please, help us to—” A hand shoots out and punches Booker square in the face. He falls back with a curse, blood pouring from his nose.

Nile and Quynh rush into the room to his aid.

“Stop this!” Quynh cries. “Yusuf, listen to us. Please. Nicolò is dead. He is _dead_. You must accept this!” She reaches for him but moves swiftly out of the way when Joe’s hand shoots out again.

She sighs. “He is with Andromache,” she says softly. “And with Lykon. They are happy and they are at peace and they are waiting for us to join them someday. We must continue to honour them and love them and live for them until that day comes.”

Joe finally lifts his red-rimmed eyes to hers. “He would not go to his final death without me. We go together or not at all.”

He looks back to Nicky, cups his jaw with his palm. “He will wake or I will die. No one else will touch him until then.”

His words are said with finality, an end to the discussion.

Booker, now healed, ushers the women into the other room and heads to a sink to wash the blood from his face.

“What are we gonna do?” Nile cries. She sinks into a chair and holds her head in her hands.

“Wait until he falls asleep?” Booker suggests.

“He’ll never forgive us. God, how do you love someone for over a thousand years and lose them in an instant?”

Quynh sits beside Nile. She lost Andy for five centuries, found her again, then lost her after sixty years. A normal human lifespan. It was enough and yet never enough.

“It will take time,” she says. “A long time. Yusuf will lose his mind. Maybe he already has. His grief will consume him and we will be able to do nothing.”

“I can’t watch that.”

Quynh nods. “We may have no choice. We must either leave him to return to his senses alone or we watch over him.” She hangs her head. “Both will be difficult.”

Booker looks back towards the bedroom and places his hands on his hips, impatient. “We can’t let that body continue to decompose. I can’t see that happen to Nicky. We can’t let _Joe_ see that happen. We have to bury him or burn him and we have to do it now.”

“We can call a funeral home?” Nile suggests.

Booker shakes his head.

“It’s a gunshot wound. There will be too many questions. Besides, Nicky doesn’t exist in the real world. Not on paper anyway, not really.”

Determined, Booker marches back to the bedroom. Joe has turned Nicky’s stiff, unyielding body on its side. It hasn’t yet started to relax. He spoons behind it, their bodies touching from head to toe and his arms wrapped tightly around. Booker imagines them merely sleeping, the same sight he’s witnessed countless times before. But he sees Joe’s mouth working, his lips alternating between whispered words and gentle kisses.

“Nile,” Booker calls. “Bring me some sheets.”

Joe opens his eyes and glares. His arms squeeze Nicky’s body more tightly. It groans.

Nile and Quynh enter the room with a handful of spare bedding.

“We have to be quick,” Booker says. He lunges for Joe and grabs him, one arm twisting Joe’s hands behind his back, the other held tight to the side of his head.

“You will not touch him!” Joe screams, thrashing wildly.

“I’m sorry, brother.”

Booker breaks Joe’s neck and lowers him gently to the now empty bed.

Later, when Joe wakes, his eyes habitually search for Nicky. He’s in bed, has been sponged clean, and he’s alone. The knowledge of what happened rushes to his memory and he heaves himself over the side of the bed to retch.

“Nicolò!” he calls.

He runs into the main room, finds it empty.

“Nicolò! Nicolò, where are you?”

Movement outside a window catches his eyes and he follows it.

This safe house is old and far from civilization. There’s a large space out back. There, Joe finds Booker and Nile throwing piles of fallen tree limbs and kindling onto a makeshift pyre. Quynh keeps watch over a figure on the ground. It's wrapped tightly with faded green sheets and twine.

“No!” Joe shouts and drops to his knees beside the body. His fingers scramble to release the covers from its face.

Booker moves to intervene but Quynh stops him.

Joe hoists Nicky’s body into his arms and presses their foreheads together. He starts speaking, pleading in a private language, and so quickly the others can’t keep up.

“Please Nicolò, please. I cannot bear it. You promised. We promised. Wake up, my love, I’ll forgive you I swear. They want to burn you. They want to take you from me. Don’t let them. Open your eyes. Your eyes were the first thing I noticed about you. Did I ever tell you? I must have. They shocked me. They reminded me of the sea and the sky and I’d never seen anything more beautiful then or since. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every pain I caused you with my blade or my words. Forgive me. Please Nicolò. I must see those eyes again. I must see your crooked smile. I must feel your touch, hear your voice. Already, I can’t recall the last words you spoke. Please please please. Don’t leave me in darkness. You’ve taken my soul with you. I cannot be stuck in this barren place without you by my side. I don’t know how to do it. I can’t. I can’t. You make me better. You make this long life bearable. I can do anything with you. I can do nothing without you. My love. Please please. I love you, I love you. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, don’t....”

His voice breaks into a sob and then a wail so loud and long and heartbreaking, the world must have no choice but to stop to listen and grieve with him.

His cries carry on until his voice grows hoarse and breathing becomes difficult. It’s nearing nightfall and the pyre is ready. Quynh places a tentative hand on Joe’s shoulder and he flinches, had forgotten where he was. His legs are numb from sitting on the hard ground for so long but he can’t feel it. He looks at Quynh and she nods.

Joe presses a long kiss to Nicky’s slack lips, then his chin and his cheeks and his nose, then his eyes and his forehead. He carefully lifts the sheet cover back over his face and lets his hand hold it there for a moment.

Quynh kindly takes that hand into hers. Nile, now kneeling on Joe’s other side, takes the other as Booker carefully pulls Nicky’s body from Joe’s embrace and into his arms. Joe feels panic. The urge to follow, to take it back, is instinctual, but Quynh and Nile hold him firm. They wrap him up to ensure the emptiness of his arms is not felt.

Ever so gently, Booker places the body on the pyre with a whispered goodbye and steps back. He glances to see if Joe wants to light the flint, but Joe is silent and frozen, locked between the women’s arms.

They all watch as the flames take hold of the wood and the body. It burns for hours. At some point, Booker can no longer bear to watch. He retreats into the house to drink and cry and beat his fists against a wall. Quynh and Nile hold tight to Joe throughout, lest he decide to throw himself on the fire. The smell and smoke are powerful, but their lungs heal before it overwhelms.

As the fire burns itself out, Booker returns and places a small wooden box in Joe’s hands. “Found it in the house,” he grunts. “For the ashes. Until you can find something else.”

Nile and Quynh slowly extricate themselves from Joe and stand, working out the kinks of their stiff muscles. They reach down to help Joe to his feet and catch him when his knees buckle.

Joe gingerly walks toward the dying fire. He doesn’t feel the last remaining embers as they spark and burn his skin. It’s difficult to distinguish the ashes that remain from wood, fibres, flesh, and bone but he scoops it all into his hands and into the box. The lid closes and Joe wipes his hands on his face and shirt.

“When I’m gone,” he says, his voice flat and so abused he’s hardly heard. “Burn me and place my ashes with his. Scatter us wherever you wish, it’s no matter to me.”

He walks past them and into the house.

~*~

Joe lives another another century, give or take a few years. He spends the time wandering between the many places he and Nicky lived and travelled. He reminisces and collects their belongings, buries his face in Nicky’s clothes, hoping to chase a smell long gone. He traces fingertips over multitudes of sketches, cajoles Copley’s replacement for every true image they have. He finds notes written in Nicky’s hand and reads them over and over until they’re committed to memory. He carries some of Nicky’s ashes in a chain around his neck, the rest in the same small box.

Joe tries. The first mission without Nicky, he’s nearly useless. He doesn’t know how to move, he’s shot unexpectedly, missing the assurance of Nicky’s guard at his back. The next mission, he kills mindlessly, viciously. The third, their first with a newly immortal young man named Arlo, is also Joe’s last. He retires to a small house near the Turkish seas.

Every day, Joe wakes and cuts himself with Nicky’s sword. Sometimes a hand, sometimes a leg or foot, sometimes a slice across the abdomen. One day, the blood continues to swell and the flesh doesn’t close. He fumbles a message to his family: It’s time. Find me, burn me. I love you. Farewell.

Joe gathers the box with Nicky’s ashes. He lays it beside him on the bed, along with Nicky’s sword and his own scimitar. The blood flows quickly now from his wrist and he feels lightheaded as he lays his head on the pillow. His vision blurs, but he swears he can just make out Nicky’s face. He smiles.

“Nicolò.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Sorry! Now go read some fluff. ;)
> 
> This isn't really my head canon, but I woke with one of the lines in my head and wrote this down in one sitting. 
> 
> Any discrepancies with the comic and potential spelling/grammar/language errors are my own.


End file.
